The Ponce Chronicles (Part 1)

I have just returned from another dimension. That’s the way it feels, returning to Boston.

I have been in Puerto Rico for the last two and a half weeks with one wife and one daughter, frolicking in the sun and surf. Oops—no, sorry!—that’s what normal people do when they “vacation” in Puerto Rico. We have been engaged in something rather different. We have been “camping” in the beautiful house that Allysen’s parents built decades ago, when her dad was brought here by General Electric to help set up some industrial plants. The house remains Fay’s (Allysen’s mom), though she moved up to be closer to us a couple of years after Allysen’s dad died. The house has been largely empty for a few years, except for some dedicated caretakers and neighbors—and one rather, er, exceptional tenant. The elements have not been kind to the house, and the tenant has left a swath of deconstruction.

We have come to pick up the pieces. What follows is a chronicle of that mission. All characterizations of the tenant, and of the house, are mine and do not necessarily represent the views of the owner (my mother-in-law).

Arrival

We fly to Ponce, Puerto Rico, courtesy of JetBlue. This means we arrive at 4-something in the morning. (All flights between Ponce and Boston are red-eyes, via New York or Orlando. This is one of the charms of traveling to Puerto Rico. Another, an actual charm, is the applause that invariably erupts from the passengers upon safe touchdown. Whether it’s applause for arrival back on the homeland, or for the pilot for getting us down in one piece, I do not know.)

Our plan is to rescue and restore the beautiful Palmer homestead on a hillside above the city, both from the depredations of the tenant and from years of the elements, insufficient maintenance, and some squirrelly electrical work (none of it unsafe!) from Allysen’s dad’s later years, when his once-exacting standards were somewhat in decline.

Members of the mission team: Allysen, Jayce (the-daughter-formerly-known-as-Julia), and Jeff. Mission site: an empty house, devoid of all furnishings except a huge stack that the tenant left behind, and a few essentials provided by kindly friends. Goal: to repair and restore, and make suitable for short-term rental or sale.

As always, we are picked up at Ponce Airport and brought to the house by Freddie, the tireless, fearless, loyal, and there-when-you-need-him moonlighting policeman. We notice at once the broken steps, the defunct lighting, the lack of running water (except precious gallons from the gravity-fed cistern), and the condition of the once-gorgeous pool (now slime green). The place actually looks better than we expected, thanks to Freddie’s hours of work in cleaning and carrying out eight 30-gallon trash-bags full of junk left by the tenant, whom we will call, um… Veronica. It was Veronica who failed to maintain the pool, didn’t report broken steps and decking, and who removed light fixtures from the walls with abandon—oh, and installed an obscenely ugly faux fireplace in the living room where once there had been lovely cabinet doors. When we last saw the house, about three years ago, it needed some work, but nothing like this. It‘s all quite a shock.

The pool as we last saw it, in 2013…

The pool that greets us now…

Another little jolt is the tarantula I spot on the side of the pool, right above the carpet of algae. We discuss what to name it. Edith? Ethel? We settle on Ethel. The next day Ethel is gone, and we don’t see it again.